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			<h1>Friends of Seasonal &amp; Service Workers</h1>
			<p>Day 00485: Monday, 2016 July 04</p>
		</header>
<p>
	I received an email from <a href="http://get.mp./">dotMP</a> informing me that the domain registration for my <a href="/en/domains/ystyst.mp.xhtml"><code>//ystyst.mp.</code></a> domain is going to expire in ninety days.
	I never even intended to buy that domain, but it&apos;s a shame that I never at least found something temporary to do with it over the past year.
	Oh well, it served its purpose, I guess.
	Buying it allowed me to learn how their purchase system worked so I was able to add that information to <a href="https://y.st./en/URI_research/usable_ccTLDs.xhtml#mp">my notes</a>.
	If I ever need a secondary domain for a project that needs to be kept separate from my main domain, using the dotMP registry wouldn&apos;t be a bad choice.
	I still like the <a href="http://www.nic.st./"><code>st.</code> registry</a>&apos;s system better, but dotMP&apos;s prices are lower.
</p>
<p>
	It occurred to me that I&apos;m not going to have any clean clothing to change into, as we weren&apos;t prepared for an overnight stay.
	I reluctantly asked Cyrus to pick up two bins of my dirty laundry that are already packed but that we didn&apos;t bring on this trip.
	We haven&apos;t had a working washing machine for a while, but Alyssa has one.
	That doesn&apos;t touch the dirty laundry in the hamper either, though I thought it best to keep my requests simple.
	I also requested my computer bag, which I knew to be over-packed.
	Most of what&apos;s in it, I don&apos;t want here in Gresham, but at least that would get my laptop here.
	There are other things that I&apos;d like to grab in Springfield too, but to keep it simple, I only covered these two basic needs.
</p>
<p>
	Alyssa and I headed out to the office at which they volunteer, the office of the Friends of Seasonal &amp; Service Workers.
	We took the local passenger train, an electric train drawing its power from cables above.
	It was an interesting experience, and it&apos;s nice to see how Alyssa gets around town.
	Our mother is frustrated that Alyssa prefers not to drive, but taking a train that&apos;s already in action saves a lot of fossil fuel consumption.
</p>
<p>
	Once at the office, Alyssa gave me a tour and showed me how their filing system works.
	To be honest, it seems a bit strange to me.
	First, they use an inconsistent abbreviation system.
	For some things, they use acronyms, but for others, they instead use word fragments joined together, and you never know which system was used for any given abbreviation.
	A little consistency would be nice.
	Possibly more importantly though, they&apos;re using an archaic filing cabinet system; a few filing cabinets full of index cards hold all of their client and volunteer information.
	They could save so much space if they computerized it all, not to mention that updating the &quot;database&quot; (as they call it) would be much faster and easier.
	Database lookups would be a breeze as well.
	We were just in time for lunch, so wile waiting, I stickered newspapers that they were going to be mailing out, binding them closed so they didn&apos;t fly open in the mail.
	Honestly, I figured I&apos;d just work through lunch, as I wouldn&apos;t be able to eat whatever they were cooking, but they were actually very accepting and nonchalant about my veganism, preparing a main dish that we could all eat and side dishes that were different for them and me.
	After lunch, we set about addressing newspapers so that they could be mailed and updating the &quot;database&quot; to make note of who we&apos;d sent newspapers to and not.
</p>

<p>
	The Friends of Seasonal &amp; Service Workers keep a large alphabetized set of index cards with information on everyone that they&apos;ve ever had dealings with.
	While that system works great when trying to look up someone specific, it&apos;s highly inefficient when trying to figure out who you know you&apos;ll be dealing with again in the next week or month.
	To deal with that issue, a second, smaller set of index cards with duplicate information is kept in a small box organized by when that entity will is next scheduled to come in or otherwise interact with the Friends of Seasonal &amp; Service Workers.
	Whenever information is updated on one card, it must also be updated on the other card, assuming that it exists (as the alphabetized set has substantially more cards than the ordered-by-date set).
	We sat down around a lard table, and each person was given a job.
	I was one of two people that continued working on stickering newspapers, but it took four other people to man the database.
	One person would read a name from a list, then the other three would do something with that name.
	The first would simply apply an address label with that name and the corresponding postal address on the newspaper.
	The second would find and update the card of that entity in the large database to make note that the newspaper had been sent out.
	The third person would sift through the smaller database attempting to find a card for that entity, updating it if t was found.
	As these cards weren&apos;t alphabetized, the entire card box would need to be sifted through every time to see if the entity had a card there.
	It took quite a bit of time, and it didn&apos;t seem like we got very far through the list.
	It didn&apos;t help that Alyssa and I had a time crunch though.
	Our mother doesn&apos;t like people that try to disrupt the system, even when disrupting the system is for the good of everyone, which is exactly what the Friends of Seasonal &amp; Service Workers are trying to do.
	Because of that, we wanted to beat our mother home and act like nothing had happened, at least for now.
</p>
<p>
	We made it back to the apartment with time to spare, but when our mother got home, I learned that our mother plans to make Cyrus stay in Gresham with Alyssa.
	The supposed reason for this is so that Cyrus can find a job, but Cyrus, Alyssa, and I all know that the real reason is to keep Cyrus away from our father.
	The court ordered that Cyrus and Vanessa be allowed to see our father until they are adults and Cyrus is now above age.
	Cyrus can easily come along when our father picks up Vanessa, but only if the two are within reasonable proximity to one another.
	By keeping Cyrus in Gresham in an apartment that our father isn&apos;t allowed to know the location of (Alyssa doesn&apos;t want their home location known), Cyrus become cut off from our father.
	It&apos;s just the sort of manipulative tactic that our mother likes to employ, thinking that they&apos;re real intentions aren&apos;t known.
</p>
<p>
	Much of the day was spent fulfilling social obligations with relatives that I barely know.
</p>
<p>
	Upon arriving back at the apartment once more, I learned that there are certain triggers that still exist for Alyssa&apos;s migraines, such as lack of sleep.
	Last night, our mother kept Alyssa up by playing noisy games on their mobile in Alyssa&apos;s room while they were trying to sleep! Our mother knows that Alyssa is a light sleeper too, so even without migraines, that was a highly-inconsiderate move.
	I can&apos;t believe what my mother will do sometimes.
</p>
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